Searching is one of the most popular applications available on computer networks such as the Internet and corporate intranets. Traditionally, there are two options for providing search applications. The first option is to purchase or license proprietary search technology. It may be very expensive to install and maintain search technology on private servers. Additionally, a customer may be “locked in” to the technology of a particular vendor, making it difficult or impossible to build integrated search solutions, or to switch vendors. The second option is known as the application service provider (ASP) model. With the ASP model, search technology is installed and maintained on the servers of a third party, the service provider. Search queries to the customer's servers invoke the search functionality of the ASP, which searches the third party servers and returns results. The ASP option may make it easier to switch search vendors and may reduce the initial expense and ongoing maintenance costs.
Neither of the traditional search options enables the selection of the best available search technology for a particular search query. This lack of flexibility leads to a “one-size-fits-all” approach to searching. Applications built with search technology cannot be designed in a vendor-independent manner. Therefore, a need exists for inter-search technology protocols to locate and match the best search technologies to service a particular query.